Archives : all posts by Dan

Takka Takka - "We Feel Safer at Night"

My stereo's wearing an Autumn Sweater, on its way to practice with the church choir. Only this church choir all speak-sing like Malkmus and they finally bring a little showmanship to this dull parish. Not too much, though, just a few smiles, a few swells, a few "allright"s. [Buy]

Les Angles Morts - "Kaleidoscope"

I was on a panel today as part of the Future of Music Policy Conference. It was pretty okay. I didn't say a whole lot, I said about as much as I usually say on here. One thing that was said was something like: "there should be more old and out-of-print stuff on mp3 blogs". I thought I'd take that advice and celebrate this dead band with an out-of-print song off their debut and only record. It takes off like some great jagged bird, flies at you and out of sight, then swoops up under your chin and tickles your nose on the way by. I think the title comes more from the idea of spinning to get results than reflections and colours.

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I also saw Joanna Newsom tonight (first time). It was my little present to myself after a really busy week. It was, in short, incredible. She doesn't so much play the harp as gather it together, pull it to her. She runs across it like a field. She cradles it like a giant stupid baby, and sings to it, literally. No other instrument really allows one to sing to it like that. It's as if these songs are written for her instrument, as well as for it. In any case, I'm for it. Have a good weekend.

The Blow - "Babay (Eat a Critter, Feel Its Wrath)"

This silly, happy duo have sat with me for a few weeks now. At first, I didn't pay attention to them, but now I'm rapt. Radio pop done at home, better than most of the radio pop it sounds like. It's like surfing, if surfing could be done at a really slow pace. It's like skateboarding through sunsetting streets. [Buy track from K]

The Blow - "True Affection"

A quality that pervades the album, in a beautifully unself-conscious way, is a feeling of adolescence. References to books you read in high school, discoveries you have as a teenager, but genuine, not mocking. Something about it being made by K Records makes it all the more. Watch the video on their MySpace of them making the album; there's Calvin Johnson, unexpressively helping all the way along. Proof of love. [Buy track from K]

other songs worth buying:
"Parentheses" - when you're holding me, we make a pair of parentheses
"The Long List of Girls" - this is a top 40 hit, despite whether it is or not.

Rock Plaza Central - "I Am An Excellent Steel Horse"

I see a lone horse, standing in front a barn, picking his guitar and starting this song. As each instrument is introduced, their player walks slowly out of the barn and lines up beside the horse. Once everyone is there, the literally start dragging the barn across the field, into the sunny part, where the hayloft can get warm, and the mice and spiders can finally see each other. When they get there, the cymbals are already cheersing. I suppose work is the only good reason to celebrate. [order off the MySpace]

Drakkar Sauna - "Decoy Schmecoy"

listen to this song quietly. While someone else sleeps. It feels like receiving personal mail while on a plane. Amongst all of us, even though we all look the same, this is just mine. [Buy]

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small note: as of the writing of this entry, we have just received our 6,000th comment on this blog. quoted here: "I've been so long trying to describe this heat. Thank you, Sean!", I think it's quite apt.

Flying - "Minors"

I feel like I've been living with this guy's voice for years now. I hear his voice in too-soft music at quiet parties, playing from roommates' rooms as I walk to the kitchen, in the earphones of friends who I ask to hear what they're listening to when they walk up to me in the street. But in a much different setting here. Now I'm excited. And he's joined by this completely psycho girl with a devil-grin and a jolting, flinging way of moving. She's pounding and throwing glitch all over the place, and then puts her fingers to her lips and plays the piano with her hair. She takes over the song, in the end, but it was her job. He's like the straight man, meant to be beat, but there's a right way and wrong way to be outshined, and he knows how to do it.

This album, Just-One-Second-Ago Broken Eggshell (yeesh) has a few great tracks on it. [Buy]

Tom Waits - "Bottom of the World"

See what I mean about Tom Waits? The moon is the colour of a coffee stain, he's eating Tilapia fischcakes and fried black swan, while dining with Scarface Ron. It's almost, in fact it is, quite hilarious how much Tom Waits is himself. And I wouldn't want it any other way. Although it's troubling that this is a perfect song to drink alone to. Looking from the bookshelf to the ceiling and back again, feeling the corduroy of the chair arms under your fingertips, trying to force tears out of your eye sockets, like so many fingers down your goddamn throat. [read the great little piece he wrote on Orphans]

Patrick Watson - "Bright Shiny Lights"

Patrick Watson is someone surrounded by, immersed in, aesthetic. Ships in bottles lost at sea, old-timey, otherworldly figures, old toy train cars that fall off the sidewalk into the pink sky. See the video for "Drifters" on the MySpace to see what I mean. Someone else who approaches music this way is Tom Waits. However, with Waits, his aesthetic of drunken boardwalk gamblers and trench-coat crooks who meet in dark wet woods with giants who are burying an only son, is completely necessary, and not as a crutch is for walking, but more like putting a face to a name, for enjoying his music (my opinion). But with Watson, not that I don't like the work of Ms. Brigitte Henry, in fact I quite like it, but I feel this song benefits hugely from a context-less, an image-free environment. One that the green drapes of this blog can provide. So, I've brought it into the lab for you guys today so you can see what a swaying, crooning, gem this Patrick Watson is. And you can apply your own aesthetic. For me, I see this being played on Saturday Night Live, with Watson in his taxi-driver hat, nuzzling into the mic, and his back-up singers all doodie'd up in sequins, and the old drummer slamming that snare with the nervous energy that comes with playing that show. (I never claimed my aesthetic would be better, only that it would be my own.)
This is the last track on the downright lovely Close to Paradise. [out Sept. 26th]

Polyphonic (the Verbose) - "Moving On"

It's September, I should be doing homework and getting carpet burns on my elbows. This has, in the flute, in the steps, that steady, happy walk that gets the day's work done and feels strong. It loses that at the end. [Buy]

Arizona - "Splintering"

This song is close to great*.

*I mean I don't believe the breaks¹.

¹not that I could do any better°.

°i'm just trying to be honest^†.

^†harder than it looks.

[Buy]

Please Step Out of the Vehicle - "I Could Move"

I'm 15, it's Friday, and I'm staying at my mom's this weekend (way better TV). [info]

Frog Eyes - "Bushels" (Daytrotter Session)

I already posted "Caravan Breakers" from this same session, and you've probably heard this already, but why should I pretend with you?

Why should I pretend I haven't been listening to this every day for the last month? Sometimes more than once. Their Daytrotter session might be the best "whole thing" they've ever done, if you ask me (as of this date). I think Carey Mercer sings his songs fingerprintally, so it will probably never sound like this again (as of this date).

Never again will you feel like you're in so much trouble you just want to throw up your hands through your mouth.

Never to be caught in the gutter by leaves, to be drained of your energy through chores, and other duties that lead nowhere.

To look up at the dark sky as if there were something written on it, as if it would be in english.

To scream out like James Brown, asking the most sensual, the most personal and perfect, question.

[as usual]

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Also: new Joanna Newsom. It seems so good. I can't even handle it. Maybe one of the other two will have something for you later in the week.